This post contains spoilers for Heartstopper season 2 episode 3, “Promise”.
Heartstopper season 2 continues to be heartwarming while confronting some hard realities. As Nick makes more plans to reveal the nature of his relationship with Charlie to some of his friends, Tao and Elle try to identify if there is more to their friendship than meets the eye.
Let’s recap the third episode of Heartstopper season 2 and the challenges it throws in the characters’ way.
- Heartstopper season 2 episode 1 recap: Coming out is hard
- Heartstopper season 2 episode 2 recap: Family trouble
More than just friends
Now that he has admitted his crush on her to Nick and Isaac, Tao is determined to ask Elle out and to plan the perfect first date for her. He goes over his options with his friends and even goes on the Internet to research the best course of action. Eventually, he lands on the idea that he needs to freshen up his looks before he even talks to Elle.
Meanwhile, Nick and Charlie are done with the rugby season and the other rugby lads come up to Nick to invite him to an after exams party in the woods once their GSCEs are all done and dusted. The boys also apologize for what happened at the cinema with them and Harry in season 1, and point out that they know he and Charlie are “really good mates.”
Nick doesn’t know how to answer that and when he sees Charlie in the equipment room soon after, he tells him he wants to come out to the lads. They exchange a kiss and their rugby instructor walks in on them. She later asks to see Nick in her office and asks him to tell her if any of the other boys say anything out of line to him. She also shares her own experience of being a lesbian in rugby and recalls how she met her wife. When Nick explains that the others don’t know about his sexuality yet, his teacher tells him he doesn’t owe them that information.
Freedom!
The end of term is near and while Nick has to study for his final GCSE exams, Charlie still has some coursework to finish. A montage shows the boys working hard to get it all done and before we know it, a hoard of students rush out of the school, celebrating the end of their exams and their newfound freedom from studying.
As the students from both the boys and the girls schools are gathering for a meeting about their upcoming trip to Paris, Tara accidentally tells Darcy that she loves her and things get a little awkward between them as Darcy doesn’t say it back.
In the meantime, Tao is nowhere to be found while James — a boy with whom Isaac has been spending a lot of time with in the school library — asks him if he plans on going to the end-of-exams party in the woods. Is romance brewing for Isaac too?
After the meeting, Elle and the group find Tao waiting outside with a fresh haircut and a bouquet of flowers. He tells Elle he likes her and, at last, asks her out on a date to the cinema. She is surprised to find out he likes her but doesn’t hesitate to say yes to the date. Later on, we find the couple at the local cinema where they are going to see Moonrise Kingdom.
Although it’s not a movie that Tao likes, it's Elle’s favorite and he picked it to please her. They sit in the screening room with the biggest buckets of popcorn known to man and things start to get a little awkward. Both Tao and Elle have trouble navigating this new dynamic in their relationship and when he tries to hold her hand, Tao quickly pulls out, feeling unsure about it. Their date ends on an uncomfortable note as neither of them is acting as their true self around the other, and Elle feels like they should have done something they both liked rather than manufacture the date around her.
Party time
At the party in the woods, Isaac goes off to hang out with James, while Tara looks for Darcy. She eventually finds out her girlfriend isn’t coming because she did not have a lift to the party, and Tara can’t shake the feeling that something is off. When Tao and Elle arrive in the woods after their date, they have a fight about how perhaps they should not mix romance into their friendship, and both go their separate ways.
When they arrive at the party, Tori warns Nick to look after Charlie before going off to do her own thing. The two boys hang out by themselves for a bit but when they try to join the other kids, they get separated in the crowd and Nick can no longer find Charlie. He runs into the rugby lads but struggles with the idea of coming out to them. Looking for Charlie, he only finds Tori who points out that he was supposed to watch out for Charlie and that he doesn’t look well. Next time he stumbles on his teammates, Nick is really feeling overwhelmed and having Harry there does not help. Eventually, Charlie shows up to tell Harry to piss off and seeing how bad Nick looks, decides to take him home.
After making Nick a cup of tea and chatting with his mother, who tells him Nick is really lucky to have him, Charlie goes to Nick’s room to check up on him. Nick jokes about how Charlie stood up for him with Harry, to which Charlie retorts that he would fight anyone who’s mean to Nick. The latter feels particularly deflated about not coming out to his friends like he said he would. He confesses that he feels bad because when he and Charlie went on a date at the beach, he promised him he would come out, and now he is struggling with it.
Understanding where Nick is coming from, Charlie reassures him that he doesn’t owe a coming out to anyone, his words echoing what their rugby instructor told Nick earlier. He would rather have Nick come out on his own terms, when he is ready, although he admits that he wishes everyone knew he was his boyfriend. To help Nick feel better, he then offers that they keep their relationship a secret while they go on their school trip to Paris.
That’s it for the third episode of Heartstopper season 2. What will happen between Tao and Elle? Will the trip to Paris go smoothly for Nick and Charlie? To find out, tune in for the next episode of Heartstopper, now available on Netflix.
